How To Jailbreak iPod Touch 2G in Windows XP/ Vista Master Tutorial

8 February 2009By Shashank

As I previously mentioned about the Redsn0w Jailbreak which was released by the iPhone Dev team, the only thing that was keeping me away from trying this Jailbreak on my 5 days old iPod Touch 2G was that this was a tethered Jailbreak release, means that it is not going to be as easy as the previous Jailbreak being made available for iPhone. But now I have fully Jailbreaked my iPod Touch 2G for 3rd party goodness like themes, apps and this was very very easy than I previously thought about it, I used Windows XP SP3. To Jailbreak your iPod Touch you will need to have a GUI tool named Cyw00d Jailbreak Helper V1.7, this is a tool that has made Jailbreaking of iPod Touch 2G a cakewalk even for newbies. So if you want to Jailbreak your iPod Touch 2G here are the steps you would need to take:

First Pre-requisites for Jailbreaking iPod Touch 2G Windows XP:

1) Make sure you have upgraded to latest firmware 2.2.1 for iPod Touch 2G

2) If you are using Cyw00d Jailbreak method than the only thing you would require is a Apple Device Software Update ipsw file of firmware 2.2.1. How to get this file? easy if you have recently updated your iPod Touch then it must be present at this location

File name is iPod2,1_2.2.1_5H11a_Restore, size 277MB , if its not there then you can download Apple iPod Touch 2G firmware from here, I would recommend to download via iTunes using updates.

3) Download Cyw00d jailbreak helper version 1.7, extract it to a Folder named iPod Touch. Download from Rapidshare, this is a stable release. Forum thread

4) Copy the IPSW file to the iPod Touch folder where you extracted the Jailbreaker, see image

4) LibUSB included in the program

5) C++ redistributable included in the program

6) Includes Cydia and Installer

7) Redsn0w included not visible

This Jailbreak method is for 32 bit OS users only

Starting the Jailbreak Process Step by Step :

STEP 1 :

As this is a GUI based Jailbreaker, the steps are self explanatory, first you need to install the libUSB drivers and then C++ redistributable package that will help the program, Warning: Microsoft Vista users need to run libUSB in Windows XP compatibility mode, for this find and right click on libUSB executable( present in the install folder where you extracted Jailbreaker), click on Properties then compatibility mode and set it to Windows XP.

STEP 2 :

In step two we’ll create patched firmware/Custom firmware from this iPod2,1_2.2.1_5H11a_Restore file, this will be saved as JailbrokenIPSW, Click iPod2,1_2.2.1_5H11a_Restore and further click on Start making IPSW, you will not see JailbrokenIPSW.ipsw in this step( i created screenshots later)

STEP 3 : also see same image of step 5

DFU MODE : in order to install the jailbroken IPSW file back to the iPod touch we will need to enter in the DFU MODE or Service mode, for this Hold Down Power and Home Button for ten seconds( hear dding sound) leave Power and keep holding the Home Button for 8 more seconds( dding sound) and leave it, don’t freak out its simple. In my case i heard dding sounds around 10th and 17th seconds, and even if you don’t get it right for the first time try again.

Click on Press me , right click and paste in the command prompt, wait for a while

Open iTunes, now it must be asking you for a restore, Hold on the shift button on your computer and click restore on iTunes, navigate to folder “iPod Touch” and select JailbrokenIPSW, now iTunes will restore our newly made custom patched firmware, this might take a couple of minutes.

Comments

Thanks for this great tutorial, but it would be even greater, if it would work for me ^^

I’m stuck at this step where you restore your iPod Touch 2g with the jailbroken fimware.
At this point, my Ipod won’t restore and iTunes aborts the restoring with the error message “1601”, when I’m in DFU-mode.
In the “normal”-mode where you see the “connect to iTunes” – Symbol, I get error message “1604”.

Besides the screen of my iPod Touch 2g turns white, when I’m trying to restore and I hear the “usb unplugging sound”.

@Patrik
which version of the Jailbreak software are you using previous versions have bugs in it, Version 1.7 is bug free.
Try restoring to original 2.2.1 IPSW firmware file not the jailbroken one and start the jailbreak process again.

when i click on properties of the “Cyw00d Jailbreak Helper” it says version 1.0.

The restoring doesn’t work because I always get the error message “1604” … it doesn’t even work in the DFU-Mode…the progress bar just stops and after 5 min it tells you that error message…it don’t really know what to do right now 😥

^^
Please download the V1.7 from the link given in the post. Which version of firmware you had on your iPod Touch.
Things you can try:
You can try restoring on a different computer unplug and replug usb with every try
Try uninstalling and reinstaling iTunes
i think a new computer and freshly installed itunes could definitely help you.

@Russel
Which OS are you using? you can also try ctrl+restore or shift+restore , it has worked for some people. And if you followed the tutorial right there shouldn’t be any problem.
@ayechan
you are welcome
@Huda
Can you let me know how you managed to damage your Vista drivers. Vista USB drivers can be damaged if libUSB is made to run without compatibility mode i wrote clear instructions(warning in step 1) about that.
I am glad it worked for you 🙂

Everything worked great up until Step 4. When I pressed the button, a black command screen flashed and went away with no way for me to patch the commands in. I did manage to get my Ipod restored back to 2.2.1, but I wonder what went wrong. Got any ideas?

@Steve
Did you disconnect and reconnect the iPod Touch before step 4? Don’t worry just try again, read the instructions one more time and post back. Good Luck

————-
Guys please mention the OS on which you are trying the jailbreak, i wrote this tutorial for Windows XP, and Vista users shouln’t try it unless they know what they are doing and should adhere to the warning in step 1.

i managed to get this running on a 2.2.1 ipod touch 2nd gen. i can see cydia and installer andn they work. but when i restarted the ipod it wont turn back on and windows keeps saying usb device not recognized. what can i do?

hi Shashank
first i want to ty for this great turtorial
but i have a problem with step 4, when i have to restore the jailbrokenipsw on itunes, it doesnt work. An erroe always pops up and says” The ipod”ipod” could not be restored.An unknown error occured (5).
idk what to do now??? what am i doing wrong, i did everythig from step 1-3 correctly so idk =]
help me please=]

if you failed at jailbreaking and want to restore the original apple firmware, don’t go into DFU mode before restoring. simply start up itunes and do a SHIFT+Restore and select the iPod2,1_2.2.1_5H11a_Restore.ipsw file that you have downloaded onto your computer.

@Sil
You just have to boot the device by following steps 5 to 7.
As this is tethered jailbreak you need to follow the boot process every time if you want to restart your iPod Touch.
Installer and cydia should work after the restart.

@Jimmy
Maybe there is a problem with your IPSW( currupted), start afresh by using a new IPSW firmware file and creating a new Jailbroken IPSW. good luck

@Sunyata
i am sure your tip will help many people who want to restore to original firmware. Thanks

PATRICK OR ANYONE ELSE WITH ISSUES! if your ipod touch gets black screen of death or ay of the 1600 errors g on youtube and watch my vdeo. search for x6kx3 on youtube and watch video there is an update in side bar and your ipod will be saved. alsothe last few instructions on tutorial are rather hard to understand. step 7 is alittle hard to get. if i was to jailbreak a friends ipod on my computer and give it back to him would the software still be there?

I have a problem. i tried to install jailbreak for ipod touch 2 G. i managed to do all the steps and after I reboot it. Now it doesn’t want to start, the screen remains black and my PC doesn’t recognize it (USB device not recognized). What should I do? plss i need helllpp 😐

@Jozo
Ya you are right, you cannot brick your iPod, there always be a restore option and your iPod will be new as before.

@nosferatul
You just need to follow steps 5 to 7 for rebooting, USB don’t recognized error will not show after rebooting and you have to follow these steps every time you wish to restart your iPod Touch.

Okay i got to step 4 and when it restored it said that the ipod was going back to factory settings and now my ipod won’t turn on. its still in DPU mode i guess or it bricked. when i plug it in the usb it doesn’t recognize the ipod. what can i do? i really want this thing jail broken

plug your connector in
open itunes
press and hold power button and home for 10
then let go of power
keep hold of home for 8 secs
should recognise it. it happened to me
its crap any way it dont turn on when you turn it off
you have to restore

okay i got it too work but i got a new question. i was fine connecting my ipod until now because i didn’t know that it was going to go into dpu mode when i turn it off (i’m about to install that thing jozo put) so when i got it back on itunes is saying that the ipod needs to go back to its factory settings. what do i do?

@dmac
ignore itunes and just follow steps 5 to 7 to reboot your iPod Touch 2G, you have to do this every time after shut down or when restarting.

@Andy
finding 32 bit or 64 bit info is easy.

Right click on My computer, in the general tab see the OS information if there is only Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version then you have 32 bit OS, if it is a 64 bit OS then it should be written as Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version.

Another method

If you are on Windows Xp, go to run, type winmsd.exe, in system summary locate processor and see the value corresponding to it, if its says x86 something then it is 32 bit otherwise there will be x64 something for 64 bit OS.
hope this helps 🙂

But when I click “Upload DFU File”
it tries to run iRecovery.exe and immediately crashes
and pops up a window saying “iRecovery.exe has
stopped working”. Not really sure why, or how to
get it to not do that.

Hy.
I have a little problem…:D
I updated my iPod touch to 2.2.1 firmware and tried to jailbreak it.
Step 4- i waited to finish itunes the jailbroken firmware update and then i shoul start it in dfu mode.
But the only problem is that the iPod dowsn’t starts at all.
and it says to me that the USB not recognize.
Anticipated thanx for the help.

Same problem as “Francis” i think… i got to step 5 and after itunes restored the ipod, my ipod just stopped… screen is just black and when i connect it to my computer it says something like “the device won’t be recognized” (tried to translate from swedish) and when i clicked there a new window popped up where it said that i don’t have the right drivers… please =( can’t use my ipod..

I have a problem on step 3, I set the iPod to DFU Mode, Close iTunes when it asks me to recover. Then I click Upload DFU File. It uploads. I unplug for 3 seconds, plug back in, and the screen stays black. and iTunes comes up and asks me to recover. Its like nothing happens and it just stays the way it was. Any help getting my screen to go white would be appreciated! Thanks!

Hey, first of all what a nice tut. It worked but there is a downside :(. I’ve jailbroke my iPod touch and after installing an app (the tap to unlock app) I had to reboot it. But than it won’t go on anymore. I’ve restored it’s original firmware but the jailbreak was gone (duh). Is anyone else experiencing this?

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the detailed tutorial! Jailbreak is done successfully with my ipod touch 2G. I could see Cydia, installer, games and appls were available to install after imPatch installation but … when I turned off ipod completely (holding power button and slide red virtual switcher on a screen) … I can’t turn on it again! It should connect to PC, hold power and home buttons and wait when iTunes find IPOD, than press shift and open original firmware 2.2.1 to restore factory settings. Where is my mistake? Please help! Thanks Andrew.

@Michiel
You restored to original Apple firmware, ofcourse the jailbreak will be gone, Jailbreak again, next time your iPod won’t start repeat from step 5 by going in dfu mode.

@Anthony
yes you messed up, read the warning in step 1, you have to install libUSB in XP compatibility mode.

@Satan plz ask your questions here, it would help other people.

@Andrew
you don’t have to restore it, you just have to reboot it, just start from step 5.

@Conor
1.) Yes, they get deleted because its a custom firmware restore.
2.) Yes its possible, Before jailbreaking sync all the iPod Touch apps, music, videos to iTunes and after jailbreak set it as new iPod Touch and Sync back.

Hey guys! Everything was going great for me until I had to enter the command prompt. I couldn’t find it. Could someone please either tell me where to find it or just post it here EXACTLY as it appears (I really want to get this right). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

BTW, just wondering, is there something you can do if you’ve jailbroken your ipod, but your itunes won’t read it or let you restore it?

P.S. Please write my name at the top of your post if you answer me (just so I can know what to read).

Hey everybody, I’m in semi-panic mode. I was at step 5 where you had to set the iPod to DFU for the second time after restoring it. It wouldn’t respond. I tried to get onto iTunes again and restore it the normal way, but iTunes won’t read it. I need help, please!

Can someone please answer my posts? I am desperate to figure what is wrong with my completely unresponsive iPod. My computer doesn’t even know it’s there at all. Please, Shashank, do you have an answer for me? I’m am desperate.

Shashank,
Thank you for your muchly helpful tutorial on how to use Cywood’s GUI based cover for the manual method of jailbreaking. I’ve been thinking about jailbreaking my iPod Touch 2g for several weeks now. Adding your tutorial to the manual instructions at:
—-skipped misleading url——
and the video tutorial: This video tutorial is for Windows Vista Usershttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BefDZmitRwY&annotation_id=annotation_567697&feature=iv
on youtube.com, I finally decided to do it and now I have a jailbroken iPod Touch after a slight scare. I encountered the “usb device not recognized message”. Fortunately the comments to the tutorial had a solution.
This brings me to the request that you put a mention in the tutorial itself about this and other heart attack inducing messages that can be ignored. Just keep trying and it works. Maybe it’s there and I just didn’t get it.
All in all very good work.

Shashank, it worked great, thanks. However, I don’t quite fully understand how to use cydia and installer. I thought that once I jailbroke this iPod I could get for free most of the apps apple was selling. How do I get those apps? I searched a popular application name in both cydia and installer and nothing came up. Apps are why I did this, any help? (also, how do I get bossprefs so I can get touch to unlock and other good stuff like that i.e. my name in the corner, etc.?) Thanks.

@Lakki
you are welcome
@srtefano
I was thinking of adding that instruction, now you have done that. Thanks
@stonechild
Great now enjoy your jailbroken iPod.
@scottk
After jailbreaking some of the apps that you must install are WinterBoard, dtunes and many more, you can apply third party themes with winterboard, for more tutorials on iPod Touch there is this site http://www.iPodtouchtricks.net
as you might have already guessed, i can’t talk about pirated apps dude. Good luck
@John
you call it blinking 😯
I hope you are using windows XP.
after uploading the DFU file you have to disconnect and reconnect your iPod, read step 3 again. Good Luck
——————-

As i said before, the comments now have all the answers to almost all specific problems to iPod Touch 2G jailbreak in Windows, please go through them and post here if you get success, your views will definitely help others. If you still need help, I am still here to help you 🙂
———————
Users installing Winterboard after jailbreaking will need a restart and after restart, your iPod touch will be kinda dead, then you have to start from step 5 for booting process.
———————

To begin with, thank you for this tutorial. I haven’t tried the jailbreak yet because until I found this particular tutorial I didn’t think that my iPod Touch could be jailbroken with the firmware of 2.2.1 yet. I purchased my iPod on February 21, so I didn’t have to upgrade to the newest firmware. I did update my iTunes prior to purchasing, thanks to research done on the web and it made start up much simpler.

I do have a question that hasn’t been addressed as of yet in the comments: After jailbreaking, and if needing to restore (and thus do another jailbreak) will I be able to restore my previous jailbroken applications through syncing with iTunes or will I have to download and configure all of them again?

I’m interested in jailbreaking for the customization capabilities more than the applications, but will try those out as well. 😆

Okay so I successfully jailbroke my ipod and everything was working great, but about a day later it froze and the screen went completely black and it wouldn’t charge or reset or do anything, and my computer didn’t recognized it. So i put it into DFU mode and went through the jailbreak process again and the same thing happened… it worked for a few days but then blacked out. HELP PLEASE!!!

I jailbroke my iPod Touch and figured out how to find the regular applications while keeping the jailbreak. However, I am still wondering how I will keep the applications/themes I have downloaded through Cydia if I ever need to restore and re-jailbreak. Will I have to reinstall those?

@John
This jailbreak can work with 32 bit Vista OS but not with 64 bit Vista and i suggest you , don’t even try it with 64 bit. 64 bit users are out of luck for now.

@Dray, Drayson
Just read the steps again and comments. Start all over again, from step 3 i think.

@Zach
If you do a restart, you have to go with all the booting process from step 5 again. You are saying that it works for a few days, but how did the blackout?? happens, while playing any game or any specific app?

@Nathan
Start again with a new ipsw file.

@Tari

You can sync the normal applications to iTunes which after restore and jailbreak, you can sync back to your iPod Touch.

And for the jailbroken application downloaded via cydia, you have to probably resinstall them again because you cannot sync them with iTunes.

and there might be a method to backup cydia apps by copying app files via ssh access but i have not tried it. You have to search for installation folder of cydia apps and after restore and jailbreaking put that folder again to the same location. Installing the apps again would be easier option anyway.

Hi Friends,
I did try to to jailbreak my iPod touch 2g 32gb as per above instructions, everything went fine and completed the step seven but when I started iTune, it asked to restore backuped playlist I did the same and restored backuped playlist, when iTune restarted the iPod, it gone to black screen of death, it never started again. Neighter even my laptop is not recognizing the device (OS: Windows Vista) nor it is turning power on. I did try many times by pressing power button (or holding it for few seconds) it is not turning on.
I am getting message “One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows dones not recognize it.” please help me, I m scared.

Start from Step 5 of this Jailbreaking tutorial for booting, if you have restored to original firmware then you have to start the Jailbreak process all over again.
and btw this question is already been answered read comments. Good Luck

And after jailbreak DO NOT restore anything, set your iPod Touch as new one and sync songs and applications.

@Shashank,
None of batch file is working, bcoz USB driver is not recognizing the device, iPod is installed as a unknown device in device manager.
it in not turning on n getting the same message about device mallfunctioning. Please help how to make iPod install as USB device.

@Shashank,
yeah, I tried twice/thrice now I m succeed. thanks a
lots for your quick response.
Just wanna know since I m new iPod user how can now installed third party application on my iPod. I have downloaded some good *.ipa application from net?

@Shashank,
One issue I am facing after jailbreaking my iPod is that It doesn’t start if I reboot it (power off by holding power key for few seconds) and then I have to start the whole process from step 5 to 7. Can you please brief me why its happening? 😕

Shashank,
You dont understand the problem people (and me) are having. LISTEN to the people! We did the step 5 instructions. But USB doesnt recognize the ipod. It doesnt do the “beep” on 10 or 20 seconds…It cant boot or go in DFU, etc…IT DOESNT RECOGNIZE USB. So the ipod is bricked. no software can help if it cant access the ipod. Something in your (and all the other jailbreak youtube tutorials) is seriously WRONG. I know its not a hardware issue cause when i install itunes in a fresh/virgin PC (never ipod/itunes before) it recognizes OK, and itunes enter recovery state. I tried uninstalling itunes (fully/registry/etc) with no luck. You should TARGET this issue: WHY SOME CANT HAVE USB RECOGNIZED WHEN THE JAILBREAK FAILED EITHER IN STEP 3 OR 5 (NO WHITE SCREEN).
thank you.

@Luis
I don’t think you used my tutorial, did you?
Step 5 will may or may not be having dding sounds so its okay. Your question is already answered, please go through the tutorial and comments, many people were having the same problem but they solved it by trying again. for eg look the @Sanjay comments just above yours

guys ! i everything went well untill itunes finished restoring to the unlocked version, then the ipod wont start anymore and i get an “unrecognized usb device” when i plug it in… any help? i got the 32gb ipod and its my sister. so ill be dead by tomrrw.

okey now i cant get thru step 4,i tell itunes to use the resore firmware i created and when it does the ipod wont start anymore, if i point it tot the firmware i downloaded from itunes it works, maybe if i download an older from the website u mentioned will it work ?

Shashank,
Yes I read your tutorial several times and repeated it several times. Usng XP 32bit. Wonder, cause all the guys that said success run Vista? Every time go thru the first step 3 white screen OK. Trouble comes in step 5, in second time of DFU mode. After pressing home/off ipod stays in black screen and “usb device not recognized” pops up. From then on no way to recover ipod (always usb not giving access), even pressing the buttons/repeating, until I put it in a virgin (of itunes PC). Now I have a recovered ipod but when trying to sync it in my laptop again, usb ports gave conflict with itunes, blue screen and laptop crashed with no OS in the boot…:)
any suggestions?

this is what happened i restored the ipod wif the jailbroken fw and then the ipod screen just went to black and i cant get it to dfu mode turn on or anything and the comp or itunes doesnt idenify it it comes up usb unknown device plz help me asap

Hey man, ran into a problem trying to jailbreak my IPod Touch 2g 2.2.1. using this method. Of all the tutorials I looked at, this one seemed to be the easiest to follow. I was doing great having the correct result after each step through step 4. I selected the jailbroken ipsw file and waited till ITunes finished its process. I got the message saying “USB Device not Recognized” as expected. But when I went to step 5 and tried to again put my IPod in DFU mode, I did not get any response from it except the same message “USB Device not Recognized” I tried rebooting my PC. I tried restoring my PC to an earlier point (24 hrs. ago). I kept trying to push the power button and home button as before to get it to go into restore mode. I did all of these things to no avail. I read the ITunes help files, the online manual for my ITouch as well as several of the forums. I googled it to see if there was anything anywhere addressing this problem.

Is there anything you can suggest that would help me out of this situation? I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.

@Shashank @Sunyata
As I mentioned in my previous comment that once you are done with jailbreak process, your iPod won’t be restart and then we have to go through the step 5 to 7.
If we restore with the original firmware (unbreak) will it be solve the power on/off (restart) problem?

Shashank, It’s me again. I feel I have a pretty complex problem. I have had too much stress with this jailbreak (not your fault, just mine and my computer’s) and I really just want it back to normal. I’ve read rabs’ comments, but I have another problem. My computer won’t restore my computer because I have to unplug the internet to plug it in. That’s fine. I went to someone else’s computer and I tried to restore it but it turned off I now I hope I can get it running again. What do I need to do to restore it with someone else’s computer? Please help. Thanks.

Shashank, you probably are annoyed with me because of all these comments, but I have yet another problem. I followed steps 5-7 and it was fine, but when the connect to iTunes logo showed up, I opened iTunes and it said to restore it because it was in recovery modes. With the connect to iTunes logo still up on the screen, I pressed restore, but it said it couldn’t because I wasn’t connected to the internet (as I said in my previous post). I took out the iPod and tried to rush it to another computer to restore it, but the screen went blank. I took it back and followed steps 5-7, but the same thing happened: Connect to iTunes.

Shashank, I need your help now more than ever. PLEASE, you are my ONLY hope, or else my iPod touch is finished. I’m dying to have it the way it was a month ago. I am d e s p e r a t e.

Hello, So I had a successful Jailbreak on my 2g but I wanted to restore my touch back to original settings, but when I tried to restore it back to factory setting using iTunes the I got an error and now my ipod will not boot. Windows keeps saying my Usb device is malfunctioning when I plug my device in and when I force my ipod into DFU mode.iTunes will not recognize my touch so I have no restore option. Finally, I tried to restore it by using the Cyw00d again, however, it will not recognize my touch and when I follow the steps the screen refuses to turn white. Does anyone know what I can do? Should I just give up and say that it is bricked? Thank You